524 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



2.8 times as great. This plan yields a return of about 5 per cent on a $15,- 

 000 investment, and leaves from $530 to $566 to pay expenses, wages, etc. 



To show the effect of making live stock the leading feature of the farm, 

 plans showing the returns that may be expected by certain methods of 

 handling different classes of stock will now "be taken up. 



PLAN 4.— A SHEEP FARM. 



Of all the different types of agriculture, live-stock farming is the surest 

 way known to increase yields and keep up permanently the fertility of the 

 farm or to build up the farm after it has once been run down by years of 

 grain, cotton, or tobacco farming. The owner of the 80-acre farm here un- 

 der consideration was conscious of this fact and thought possibly he 

 might go into some kind of stock farming. Would it pay? He liked 

 sheep; people said there was "money in sheep." He desired that in re- 

 planning the farm its possible conversion into a sheep farm t)e considered. 

 To meet this request, therefore, the farm has been planned along one of 

 the more usual lines of sheep farming common to Illinois to see about 

 what returns might be expected. 



LIVE STOCK FABMING A COMPLEX PBOBLEM. 



The introduction of stock on the farm complicates matters considerably 

 in planning a cropping system which shall fit the needs of the stock 

 kept and in estimating expenses and returns. First of all, in the present 

 instance, it is necessary to know how many sheep an 80-acre farm will 

 carry. Before this question can be answered it must be known roughly 

 how much "fixed stock," like horses and cows, will be kept on the place, 

 since it will require a certain amount of land to grow crops for this "fixed 

 stock," and it is only the area that is left that can be counted on for pas- 

 ture and crops for the sheep. In the previous plans, where an excess of 

 grain and roughage was grown, the acreage of crops required for the 

 fixed stock did not necessarily enter into the problem except as regards 

 final returns. Now, however, the number of fixed stock kept and what 

 they eat will be a limiting factor on the number of sheep that can be kept, 

 and must be known at the outset. 



In order that the plan for the farm may in a measure comparable with 

 the plans previously outlined it will be assumed at the outset that 4 brood 

 mares will be kept for farm work, 2 colts raised yearly, 2 cows kept for 

 family use, and 2 calves sold for veal. 



Good sheep farming presupposes the growing of considerable clover or 

 other leguminous hay. With clover hay for feed, an efficient ration for 

 practically all this stock can be made, with corn as the principal grain 

 ration. Some oats, perhaps, should be grown for the colts and cows, and 

 some will be needed in starting lambs on grain rations, but as corn weighs 

 more per bushel and yields more "bushels per acre than oats, it is desir 

 able to use corn instead of oats whenever possible. 



